As a conventional technique, Patent Document 1 includes description of an image-capturing system that uses an image-capturing gate and is capable of viewing/acquiring a photo later, in which an ID number of the mobile communication terminal is used in combination as a means for implementing the technique.
However, with the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, an ID such as a mobile phone number is required for user identification, and a prior registration with a center server which manages the ID is required also. Further, it is also required to determine separately with using an entrance/exit gate in order to confirm that a user is visiting a site of interest.
Patent Document 2 discloses a technique according to which when communication becomes possible between a wireless tag carried by a user and a communication base station via a near field wireless communication, an image server manages an image captured by a camera in operative correlation with and ID acquired from the wireless tag, thus allowing downloading thereof from an external terminal via the internet.
Patent Document 3 too, like Patent Document 2, discloses a technique that causes an image-capturing subject user to carry a wireless tag for capturing images.
However, with the techniques disclosed in Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3, firstly, there arises a trouble of distributing and collecting wireless tags to/from image-capturing subject users. Further, as it is also necessary to provide additionally a detecting means for detecting entrance of a wireless tag into an image-capturing area, installment costs for each image-capturing area will increase disadvantageously. Further, with both of these methods or techniques, a user is to carry a wireless tag. And, a communication base station needs to be provided and installed in the camera image-capturing area. Moreover, since the image-capturing subject does not carry a communication terminal, it is also necessary to download the image later with using a password via an external terminal such as a personal computer or the like. The image too needs to be stored in a server for a long time, so there remains some concern respecting the security aspect also.
Patent Document 4 discloses a technique according to which a current location (whereabouts) of a digital camera is reported via a near field communication and image-capturing data is forwarded via a long distance communication to an available terminal.
However, in the technique disclosed in Patent Document 4, the near field wireless communication is employed for the purpose of reporting to a subject user, so the subject is not necessarily be present in the image-capturing area of the camera. This is originally a technique that takes into consideration only manual image-capturing, not allowing automatic image-capturing. Further, this technique suffers another shortcoming that installment cost at an image-capturing point is increased as the output of the near field wireless communication is attenuated on the transmission origin side.
A technique disclosed in Patent Document 5 concerns image-capturing range identification utilizing wireless system having directivity.
However, with the technique disclosed in Patent Document 5, the technique employs one or more wireless transmitting station(s) having directivity for the purpose of limiting the image-capturing area, so the technique does not allow use of commercially available products without any modifications therefor. Further, as the directivity of wireless communication involves factors of adjustment which increase depending on a place of its installment. Thus, like Patent Document 4 above, this technique too suffers increase of installment cost for each image-capturing area.
Patent Document 6 discloses an image-capturing system and method for automatically image-capturing a subject which moves together with a mobile terminal carried thereby. This technique is constituted of a mobile terminal carried by a subject, a position management server, an image-capturing device, a service server for image accumulation, and an image analyzing server.
However, with the technique disclosed in Patent Document 6, as this technique utilizes GPS as a position determining means in the mobile terminal carried by a subject, the technique suffers significant error. Further, the technique requires a position management server as a constituent thereof. As the communication between the carried mobile terminal and the image-capturing device is effected via a near field wireless communication, shortness of the distance is ensured in advance. However, like Patent Document 4, there is no guarantee of the subject being captured within the image-capturing area of the image-capturing device. For this reason, the technique requires the image analyzing server additionally.